Tallapragada Subba Row (July 6, 1856 - June 24, 1890) was a mystic and a Theosophist from a Hindu background. In 1882, he invited Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott to Madras (now Chennai), where he convinced them to make Adyar the permanent headquarters for the Theosophical Society. Upon this meeting and thereafter, Subba Row became able to recite whatever passage was so requested of him from the Bhagavad Gita , Upanishads , and many other sacred texts of India. He had, apparently, never studied these things prior to the fateful meeting, and it is stated that when meeting Blavatsky and Damodar K. Mavalankar, all knowledge from his previous lives came flooding back. Among the many memorable works he left to humanity, they include his commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita , Esoteric Writings , and his Collected Writings in two volumes. The Subba Row’s essay Notes on the Bhagavad Gita consists of the accounts of four extemporaneous speeches delivered by him before the delegates present at the Congress of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, from 27 to 31 December 1886.